WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Just two weeks after he was sentenced to a year in a Vermont jail for heroin trafficking in the Springfield area, teenager Daniel Morales of New Jersey was back in court last week facing three additional felony counts alleging he sold heroin and crack cocaine to informants during the month of March.

Morales, a native of Jersey City who goes by the street nickname “Flip,” is one of the so-called “Jersey Boys” who were the focus of the “Operation Precision Valley” drug sweep that was carried out last month by several local, state and federal police agencies.

Affidavits filed by detectives working with the Vermont Drug Task Force allege that on three separate occasions during March an informant who was cooperating with the task force was able to arrange drug buys from Morales by calling him and negotiating the purchase in advance before meeting at various locations around Springfield to pick up the drugs.

Detectives said that on one occasion Morales unscrewed the bottom of a can of what appeared to be a household cleaning product to reveal a hidden compartment from which he let the informant pick out one of the crack rocks hidden inside for purchase. During the other two illicit purchases, detectives said Springfield residents Victoria Thompson and April Melendy, who are both 19, were the couriers who drove up and delivered the drugs that were allegedly being purchased from Morales.

Thompson and Melendy were both arrested last month as part of Operation Precision Valley and each pleaded innocent later that day to a single felony count of selling cocaine before being held for lack of bail.

In addition to the year in jail he is currently serving, Morales faces the potential of up to another 20 years behind bars if he were to be convicted of the new charges that have now been filed against him.